News

Heroes' Heroes: Roger Federer, Wimbledon champion and world No 1, on Boris Becker

TEARS and Wimbledon finals: I guess for me, after failing to keep a grip on my emotions as Sue Barker interviewed me minutes after collecting my first title on Centre Court, the two will be forever linked. Yet I’m informed by my parents that I was crying about the outcome of a previous final 15 years before my 2003 triumph. The reason? My first sporting hero, Boris Becker, had been beaten.

To a six-year-old, defeat all seemed so tragic. How was I to know that Becker would go on to win his third Wimbledon title a year later? Or that he would also collect the champion’s trophies at the Australian Open twice and the US Open? Or that five-and-a- half years after he first threw himself to victory on that most beautiful of tennis lawns, he would finally become the world’s No 1 ranked tennis player? I hadn’t even started